When you were translating some texts for special purpose, have you ever realised, how important it is to look for exact terminological equivalents in the target language?
Of course, all the terminological units should be precise and unambiguous. Therefore, you should always consult a dictionary if you encounter a special term from a particular branch, no matter whether you understand it or not. If you understand this term, it does not matter that you are able to give its correct equivalent in a target language. Keeping the codified and standardised terminological units is one of the main requirements, which concerns all the translators dealing with language for special purpose (LSP).
The topic of my scientific research is closely connected with the standardisation of terminological units and with the terminological planning in general. These principles were expounded in a monograph issued in Ukrainian in the early 2000s (you can see this monograph here and here).
Now I would like to share some extracts from this monograph translated into English.
… Lexical modernization and lexical standardization as the basic aspects of language corpus planning include such measures, as, accordingly, terminological modernization and terminological standardization. Terminological planning, which is one of the aspects of language corpus planning also plays an important role in overcoming technical communication barriers. [Budin 1994, p. 62]. It includes thereby the terminological modernization and standardization.
Therefore, terminological planning is an organized and coordinated work on terminological modernization and standardization. Its chief purpose is the formation of appropriate LSP and the development of terminology absent in a recipient language [Picht, Draskau, p. 17]. Terminological planning can be carried out by both responsible institutions, and separate persons, but, irrespective of it, this process is always centralized.
In some countries, government agencies also can interfere with the process of terminological planning with the purpose of protection of national LSP from the influence of other languages. The character of terminological planning depends on the status of a language. So, some small countries of Europe, such as Denmark and Norway, cannot develop their own terminological systems for absolutely all the branches because of the lack / drawback s of the appropriate funds and the staff. Therefore, in some specific areas they use another language, mostly English [Felber 19842, p. 34].
The terminological modernization consists in the creation of new terms. Such measures are necessary as a component of the measures bound with language status planning. As it was already told above, branch terminological systems cannot be present in any language a priori. Technological knowledge cannot be distributed within any language, when branch terminologies are absent.
That conducts to the discrimination of speakers of this language, woh is compelled to learn foreign languages for this purpose, and finally it conducts to the backlog of this country [Nedobity 1989, p. 169-170].
In particular, it is important for technical translation, which facilitates the formation of common word-stocks in various languages of the world [Žuravlev 1982; p. 240]. So, the terminological modernization, which is a single case of the language modernization, is directed towards the realization of language potential in this or that area.
The terminological modernization takes place in the two basic cases: while translating the political, scientific or technical literature from one of language into another (in case of gaps in a target language ) and by the introduction of the appropriate language into this or that area of science or elaboration.
Thus the modernization can have two tendencies: reshaping of appropriate terminological systems of a source language according to the traditions of a recipient language [Ìvanic´kij, Kiâk 1995, p. 3] (so-called pseudo-modernization) and the creation of original terminological systems taking into consideration phonetic and grammar feature / peculiarities of a recipient language (so-called real modernization).
Cases with pseudomodernization take place under the conditions of multilinguality or by the prevailing status of one language in comparison with others. A typical example of pseudo-modernization is terminological planning in the former USSR concerning different peoples of the USSR (except for Russians). If in Russian really national terminological systems were created, with taking into consideration all the the peculiarities of the Russian phonetics and grammar; in all the the other languages under the plea of creating a common word stock, national terminological systems were actually not formed. At the same time just an appropriate Russian equivalent was either calqued, or introduced without any changes.
Just the similar phenomena are observed in some post-colonial countries, where local languages undergo a strong influence of the language of the former mother country. In such cases, for the expression of this or that idea (by the absence of necessary equivalents in a native language), appropriate words or even word combinations from language of former colonizers are merely used.
A real terminological modernization takes place when there are attempts taken with the purpose to adapt this or that language to modern conditions, to introduce it in all the spheres of political life and in all the areas of science. The creation of new terms can be directed in such cases either towards internationalization, or towards purification. Nevertheless, irrespective of the tendency, the ultimate goal of terminological modernization is always identical: to give a native language an opportunity / possibility / ability to state any scientific idea. The terminological modernization can be carried out by linguists and experts of the appropriate area, interested in the presence of exact designations for branch realities [Михневич 1988, p. 49-50]. Therefore the problem of translation of non-registered (non-codified) terms as well as the replacement of unsuccessful variants is correlated with the problem of the external registration of new terms.
The terminological standardization is the second aspect of terminological planning, which is not less important [Drezen 1935; 1936; Ahmanova 1985, p. 86; Oeser 1985, p. 92; Baxman 1985, p. 272]. It is directed towards a choice of terminological norms and their confirmation obligatory variants, as well as towards the elimination of ambiguity in communication [Picht, Draskau, p. 17], harmonization of terminological systems [Dzhincharadze 1994, p. 94], their internationalization [Leičik 1994, p. 97-107] and unification [Anjuškin 1994, p. 146-200], to make new terminological units motivated and understandable for all the branch experts, as well as to prevent a superfluous synonymy. Otherwise scientists would ultimately cease to understand each other [Budagov 1974, p. 124].
After all, the chief purpose of standardization is, on the one hand, the simplification of communication between experts by means / aids of the elimination of ambiguity and unessential synonyny, and, on the other hand, the simplification of office-work and business correspondence in this or that language concerning this or that area [Duquet-Picard 1983, p. 95-96].
As Jernudd and Das Gupta stated, standardization can concern both a variant in general (the codification of this or that variant as a supradialectal norm) and some separate aspects of this or that variant (for example, terminological standardization) [Carmel Heah Lee Hsia 1989, p. 228].
The problem of standardization of scientific and technical terms was put for the first time at the beginning of the 1930s by the Austrian engineer Eugen Wüster [Bühler 1985, p. 64]. He was the first to have paid attention to the necessity of the development of terminological standards and the centralized management in the sphere of the scientific and technical language. “A technical engineer can of course pay an interest to the beauty of language, the richness of its shades. But he is obliged to be interested in the questions of accuracy, clearness, as well as the questions of simplification of the scientific and technical communication” [Drezen 1935, p. 3].
In particular Wüster emphasized, that the language standardization may occur in the following three ways:
(a) an offer concerning new terms (coining new words);
(b) a choice between the synonyms and homonyms already available;
(c) the registration and codification of the available lexical units.
Especially important is the problem of elimination of homonymy [Wüster 1931, p. 170-171].
In the scientific terminology efforts to standardization and international unification of languages for special purpose can be carried out most effectively [Bauer 1985, p. 128]. Nedobity has defined the principle of standardization and unification of the international terminology, which is based upon several levels and concerns such aspects, as:
(a) a concept and a system of concepts;
(b) a definition, i.e. a description of a concept with the help of other concepts, mainly as words and terms;
(c) the internal form of terms;
(d) the external form of terms [Nedobity 1989, p. 168-171].
The terminological standardization can include not only standardization of spelling of this or that term, or a simple choice of synonyms and the codification of one of them as a norm. The mechanism of standardization can be thereby developed, which can include the standardization of rules and procedures of creation of terminological systems [Carmel Heah Lee Hsia 1989, p. 227].
Standardization in the field of a terminology undergoes mainly such stages:
1) regularization;
2) unification;
3) properly standardization, or narrowing of rules.
It concerns mainly such aspects of language, as pronunciation, spelling, punctuation, morphology etc. [Sager 1985, p. 240-241].
Gasthuber has defined two levels of terminological standardization:
1) the standardization of terminological principles and methods of terminography (the general standardization);
2) the standardization of separate terminological systems (the regular standardization), that is the elaboration of a standardized terminology of a certain area.
The regular standardization includes in its turn such stages:
(a) the delimitation of adjacent concepts within one system of concepts through the codification of these concepts in their definitions;
(b) the establishment of a system of concepts through an estimation and a choice of ways of coining new terms assigned for this or that concept;
(c) an estimation and a choice of elements, which are used for the creation of new terms [Gasthuber 1985, p. 261-262].
However, the terminological standardization is a conditional concept in many aspects because of the fact that even after the appropriate measures in standardization and unification certain synonymic parallels will nevertheless exist. An absolute standardization is impossible because of the impossibility of a full elimination of terminological synonyms from the active use [Drozd, Roudný 1980, p. 35].
Felber has defined the two types of standardization of terminological units, namely:
1) the standardization of terminological principles and methods for the terminological lexicography;
2) the preparation of a standardized terminology which, in its turn, includes such stages:
a) the researches of terminological systems of particular areas, i.e. the research of the real use of this or that terminology;
b) giving a shape to a terminological system (a system of concepts and their terms), that is a conscious formation and modernization of a terminology, as well as the coordination on the sphere of terminology;
c) giving recommendations concerning the coordinated terminology (publishing terminological standards) and the support its application [Felber 1980, p. 66-70].
With the purpose of standardization of a scientific and technical terminology, in 1947 the International Standards Organization (ISO) created the Committee on a technical terminology ISO/TC 37 “Terminology (principles and coordination).” Its task was the standardization of methods of creation of new terms, the formation of terminologies and the coordination of the terminological activity [French 1985, p. 248]. The terminological standardization consists in:
(a) the standardization of terminologies on the basis of the international terminological standards and
(b) the standardization of terminological principles and methods [Galinski, Nedobity 1989, p. 1].
Modernization and standardization can be considered as the two stages of terminological planning: the first stage consists in the process of filling gaps and the creations of new terms; then comes the process of the centralized selection of the most successful variants and the further codification of branch terminological standards. The ultimate goal of terminological planning is the elaboration of systems of unambiguous terms [Lotte 1961, p. 9]…
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